Documentary: Invisible chains - bonded labour in India's brick kilns

Documentary by Anti-Slavery International revealing shocking levels of slavery, bonded labour, and child labour in India brick kiln industry.

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(girl) We used to get up
at midnight, 12 or 1 a.m.,

and work through the day
making clay ready for molding.

We lined up the bricks for drying
and changed the brick sides later.

I like reading,

but my father had to take me
to the brick kiln to work

as he did not have money.

The children in the brick kilns
are getting punished in many ways.

Children are denied
their basic right to education--

whether they are working
or not in the kilns.

The children's health
is significantly affected

and in a bad situation.

One of my sons is 14 years old,

another is 9, and the third one is 7.

Children have to work at any cost.

What would they eat if they don't work?

The water is so bad,

neither we can wash utensils,
nor the clothes.

It's stagnant, dirty water,
good for nothing.

We wake up at 1 at night, start working,

and later we cook and eat.

We rest for two hours
and then start the work again.

We prepare the clay for molding
and molding bricks into the cases.

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Anti-Slavery International have worked
to address forced labor and child labor

in the brick kiln industry,

and we work on both source state
and destination

with the seasonal migrants.

We work in three states: Chhattisgarh,
Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab.

I have four children.

All of them have gone to Punjab
to work in brick kilns.

I stay alone at home here.

We can't survive on the land
as we have very little

and that is why people go to other places
to earn and make a living.

The government have done nothing.

What can it do?

Whatever food supply comes in,
the dealers take it all.

They are forced to migrate
to escape a starving situation.

They barely survive,
and then return with nothing.

So this is the ongoing--
it's a cyclic problem.

Increasingly, there is a denial.

I mean there has always been denial

of the existence
of the bonded labor system.

And that has not changed.

In fact, it has become even more worse

because the form of bondage is changing,

and if the government
doesn't keep up with that,

then we cannot address
the problem of bondage.

How can they not leave the kiln?
There is no boundary here.

They are still speaking
the old language of bondage

as physically curtailing workers
from leaving the kiln.

Their freedoms are still curtailed,

but the means that are used are different.

It is withholding their wages
with the implied threats

from the contractors
and from the brick kiln owners.

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After working for several decades
on bondage in the brick kiln industry,

we realized that a lot
of these issues and problems

arise from the system of wages
that exists in the brick kiln industry.

Piece rate wage system,
only the bricks count;

the human beings don't count.

Workers are paid
for 1,000 bricks that they mold.

It does not matter how many hands
go into making that 1,000 bricks

or how many hours go
into making that 1,000 bricks,

and that is what exists
in the brick kiln industry.

Because of which, women are invisible,

they are never paid.

Children are forced to work.

Child labor is incentivized.

If you don't put children to work

then you can't complete
the kind of production required

to earn the minimum wage.

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Brick molders, loaders,
brick firemen, brick pullers--

none of us got any money for our work.

They told us they will pay
the money in the brick kiln.

We went there and worked,

but they didn't pay us money.

I have three children,

one-year and four-year-old girls

and a four-year-old son.

They all had to come with me.

We reached such a helpless stage

that we did not have even a penny with us.

We kept molding bricks
and completed the work,

but we were not given any money.

We did not have anything to eat there.

(woman) Women face
most problems in brick kilns.

They do not have toilets or bathrooms.

There is no privacy in the brick kilns,

which is most important for them.

Women's work is never accounted for
or considered as work.

They never get the returns
of their work in their hands.

Woman has never been considered
as a worker.

We have been working for him
for the last three years,

and he hasn't paid anything
or settled our payments so far.

This year, we did not go
to his brick kiln.

He has filed a case on us
for an amount of 125,000 rupees.

He sends the police
to our home twice every day,

abuses and threatens to hurt my children

and make them incapable of work.

He calls me up and abuses
in filthy language

and threatens to abduct my daughters.

Twelve members of our family
worked in the kiln.

We used to take the baked bricks out
and stack them.

All of us worked
day and night in the kiln.

We were made to take out
really hot bricks.

Only the hands and hearts of our children
know how hot were those bricks.

He made us take out extremely hot bricks
that our hands got burned.

Our children weren't able to use
their hands to even eat food.

(Shana) The police came and tell us
to pay him the money.

They ask me why I am not paying the money.

He has filed a false case against us.

Where would we get the money from?

The state machinery,
especially the police,

punishes the people.

The magistrates, even they do not know
the definition of bonded labor.

They will always say,
he is not a bonded laborer.

How has he come to my court?

He is not chained.

He is not kept in captivity.

So how can you claim
that he is a bonded laborer?

And dismiss the petitions filed by NGOs,
filed by the bonded laborers,

and that is a big hindrance
to get justice.

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We recognize that whilst
the Indian economy

has grown and developed,

the benefits of this growth

hasn't trickled down
to the people at the bottom.

The workers that we work with
are in severe debt bondage,

and their children are in child labor
in the brick kilns.

To address this, we really need
to work systemically

and for the long term

to really tackle these issues.

So, we undertake legal measures,
we fight legal cases.

We try and advocate for change
at the governmental level

and with owners,

We work to build worker movements
and people movements

that will be sustainable
in fighting slavery,

and we work with the communities affected

to make them less vulnerable
to these types of slavery.

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